She arched under him, needing him, knowing she would always need him.
His lips moved to her throat, brushing across the scars on her neck.
She moaned, pulling his head hard against her, as if begging him to bite her, to open her again. A name rose to her lips, but she trapped it inside before it escaped into the world.
She remembered Jordan begging for her secret.
But the deepest secrets are the ones we don’t know we’re keeping.
His lips moved to below her ear, his breath heating the nape of her neck. His next words groaned out of him, full of his truth, felt in the bones of her skull.
“I love you.”
She felt tears rise to her eyes. She drew his mouth to hers and whispered as their lips brushed. “And I love you.”
It was her truth, too—but perhaps not her whole truth.
18
December 19, 1:34 P.M. CET
Castel Gandolfo, Italy
Rhun carried Elisabeta down a dark passageway that smelled of wood and aged wine. This corner of the castle’s subterranean levels had once served as the pope’s personal wine cellar. Some long-forgotten rooms still held huge oak casks or racks of green bottles thick with dust.
He followed Nadia down yet another set of stairs, heading toward the floor reserved for their order. He felt his arms trembling as he held Elisabeta. He had taken a quick sip of consecrated wine aboard the helicopter. It had fortified him enough to make this journey below, but weakness still plagued him.
At last, passing down a stone passageway dug out of the volcanic bedrock, Nadia stopped at a bricked-up archway, a seeming dead end.
“I can pay the penance,” Rhun offered.
Nadia ignored him and touched four bricks, one near her head, one near her stomach, and one near each shoulder—forming the shape of a cross.
She then pressed the centermost stone and whispered words that had been spoken by members of their order since the time of Christ, “Take and drink you all of this.”
The center brick slid back to reveal a tiny basin carved in the brick below it.
Nadia unsheathed her dagger and poked its tip into the center of her palm, in the spot where nails had once been driven into the hands of Christ. She cupped her palm until it held several drops of her blood, then tipped the crimson pool sideways into the basin.
In his arms, Elisabeta tensed, likely smelling Nadia’s blood.
He stepped back a few paces, allowing Nadia to finish.
“For this is the Chalice of My blood,” she said, “of the new and everlasting Testament.”
With the last word of the prayer, cracks appeared between bricks in the archway, forming the shape of a narrow door.
“Mysterium fidei,” Nadia finished and pushed.
Stone grated against brick as the door swung inward.
Nadia slipped through first, and he followed, taking care not to brush Elisabeta’s body against the walls to either side. Once across the threshold, Elisabeta softened in his arms. She must have sensed that she was deep underground now, where sun could never reach her.
Nadia’s thin form glided ahead, revealing how much effortless speed and strength of limb she possessed compared to him. She hurried past the entrance to the castle’s Sanguinist Chapel and led Rhun toward a region seldom trespassed—toward the prison cells.
He followed. No matter how grievous her wounds, Elisabeta remained a prisoner.
Though the cells were rarely used in this age, the stone floor had been worn smooth and shiny by the centuries of boots passing this way. How many strigoi had been imprisoned down here and put to the question? Such prisoners entered as strigoi and either accepted the offer to join the Sanguines or they died down here as damned souls.
Nadia reached the nearest cell and hauled open a thick iron door. Its heavy hinges and stout lock were strong enough to hold even the most powerful strigoi.
Rhun carried Elisabeta inside and placed her atop the single pallet. He smelled fresh straw and bedding. Someone had made the room ready for her. Next to the bed, a beeswax candle sat atop a rough wooden table, casting a flickering light across the cell.
“I will fetch healing ointments for her burns,” Nadia said. “Are you safe to be alone with her?”
At first, anger rose in him, but he brought it under control. Nadia was correct to worry. “Yes.”
Satisfied, she swept away, the door thudding closed behind her. He heard the key turn in the lock. Nadia was taking no chances.
Alone now, he sat next to Elisabeta on the pallet and gently shifted the cloak to expose her small hands. He winced from the fluid leaking from broken blisters, the skin beneath them burned pink. He felt the heat radiating from her body, as if it were trying to expel the sunlight.
He drew the rest of the cloak off, but she turned away, her head hidden in the hood of her velvet cape.